Ben Stein Claims ‘A Civil War Has Already Begun In This Country’

Fox News regular guest Ben Stein didn’t just attack the federal appeals court for rejecting Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, Stein went on to accuse anti-Trump protesters of having started a civil war.

Before he got to scare mongering about anti-Trump protesters, Stein suggested that the three federal appeals court judges that kept the stay of Trump’s ban in place are traitors.

STEIN: What this court in Washington has done is approximately the equivalent of the Japanese suing Franklin Delano Roosevelt and claiming that they should have due process rights not to have the U.S. go to war against them, and even though they’re not U.S. citizens or residents, the court grants them standing and says well they might be harmed and therefore the US can’t go to war against them.

Not surprisingly, host Maria Bartiromo did not challenge a word. Nor did she when Stein went on to suggest that anti-Trump protesters are also dangerous traitors.

STEIN: I think a civil war has already begun in this country with the disruption of Republican town halls and Republican gatherings, with the smearing of Republicans in almost every corner of the media. Obviously not in this corner of the media.

Obviously not.

By the way, did Stein ever complain about the Tea Party? Fox News actually promoted theirprotests. Did he attack the Tea Partiers for their smears of Democrats?

Watch Stein try to ratchet up the flames of divisiveness below, from the February 10, 2017 Your World.

Showing 13 reactions

Ed— Your model is true to the extent that it contradicts Robert’s argument, but I’m afraid it is as outdated as Robert’s approach. With Trump, Republicans have adopted “popularism” and “pro-life” Christian group rights. Property rights and strict second amendment rights traditionally emphasized by Republicans are essential but, in the ultimate analysis, if anything less important than eighth amendment rights, which are supported by McCain, Graham, and a few other Republicans, not including Trump. Democrats are unanimous and unequivocal about eighth amendment rights. Trump is also wobbly on even property rights in the form of civil forfiture.

I’m definitely anti-anti-military/police, but only because these government forces are under the rule of law and responsible leadership. In Putin’s Russia, I’m not so pro-police. I can live with spending more on police, particularly on more community policing, but the combination of bulking up police and signalling laxness on the eighth amendment invites the worst possible violation of individual rights, viz. the police state.

Ed Kopp — Group rights and individual rights are the same things as groups of people are made up of individuals. Or don’t you think of gays, women, non whites, immigrants, legal or not, as individuals first?

“The Democrats regard for blacks as a dependant class of people hasn’t changed during that time either. Today it is supported by the overwhealming majority of blacks and/or the voter fraud that is common in black neighborhoods.”

Hey Ed — do you have CREDIBLELINKS (i.e. links that are NOT owned by Rupert “Herr Goebbels II” Murdoch or reich-wing stink tanks like The Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute or The Hoover Institute) to back that up?

The Republicans are still the party of individual rights and the Democrats are still the party of group rights and popularism. Neither has changed that much during thier common history. The Democrats were the liberal party in 1955 and 1855.

The Democrats regard for blacks as a dependant class of people hasn’t changed during that time either. Today it is supported by the overwhealming majority of blacks and/or the voter fraud that is common in black neighborhoods.

There is no literal civil war, or in any case, the resultant defeat of the anti-military, anti-police side is so forshadowed that it isn’t worth talking about. Just leftist trouble makers being manipulated by evil people.

I see Robert may have adopted one of Foxbot Dinesh D’Souza’s pseudo-historical counterattacks. His historical detail of the birth of the Republican Party no longer inspires, let alone matches, the current state of the party (e.g. the Whigs were big spenders). The more recent, relevant history is the rebirth of the Republican Party with Nixon’s “southern strategy” about 50 years ago. Following Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic Party became at least as Lincoln-Republican on race as Republicans have ever been.

If one accepts Ben Stein’s metaphor of civil war, my vote is that it began with Nixon’s demonization of the press. In Nixon’s case, to quote Heraclitis, “character was destiny”. I shutter every time I think of that quote in connection with Trump.

Founded in the Northern states in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers, the Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the briefly popular Know Nothing Party. Wrong party whistling Dixie read a history book!

Hey Ben, “STEIN: I think a civil war has already begun in this country with the disruption of Republican town halls and Republican gatherings”…I’m looking for your quote that decries the action of Tea Baggers and can’t seem to locate it.

Ben Stein parrots a propaganda theme that is being disseminated across Fox outlets. Fox Business News hack Lou Dobbs today suggested that the Democrats are engaging in sedition. As has been noted before, right wingers can dish it out, but they sure can’t take it.